To share ideas, apps, and tools for creating different kinds of multimedia products with teachers, parents, homeschoolers and students, I’m going to start offering monthly “Playing with Media Meetups” in Oklahoma City starting in January 2013. These will be FREE 3 hour BYOD (bring your own device) workshops held in one of the meeting rooms at our beautiful new Northwest Library in Oklahoma City.

I’ve scheduled the first three meetups on a new MeetUp.com group. Please share these with other folks in the Oklahoma City area who you know that might be interested. I am catering these hands-on workshops to homeschoolers as well as classroom teachers. Parents and grandparents are also welcome! Students 10 years old and older are welcome to attend these 3 hour sessions if accompanied by a parent or guardian. Each meetup will be held on Friday mornings from 9 am to noon. Please join the “Playing with Media Meetups” group to RSVP for events and stay up to date. Each free event is limited to 40 participants.

Bring your own iPad to this FREE 3 hour, hands-on digital workshop where we’ll learn how to create and share enhanced eBooks. Enhanced eBooks can include recorded audio as well as images and text. These kinds of eBooks are perfect for parents and grandparents to create with young readers, or for learners of any age to create! Check out some examples on ebooks.playingwithmedia.com.

We’ll use two different apps to create enhanced eBooks in this session, which you’ll want to purchase/install on your iPad in advance. They are:

This is a FREE meetup/workshop led by Dr. Wesley Fryer. Homeschoolers, classroom teachers, parents, grandparents, and anyone interested in creating enhanced eBooks as well as helping kids create enhanced ebooks are welcome to attend. Students 10 years old and older are also welcome to attend WITH a parent.

Come learn how to create stories, simulations and games with Scratch software in this FREE 3 hour, hands on BYOL (bring your own laptop) workshop. Scratch software (FREE for Windows & Mac) is a wonderful program for creativity and computational thinking. This FREE workshop will be led by Dr. Wesley Fryer, who has led several “Scratch Camps” for students as well as adults in the Oklahoma City area. This meetup is open to students 9 years and older, parents and educators. Homeschoolers are welcome! Scratch is a fantastic program for digital creativity, developing “STEM” skills like problem solving and computational thinking, and also having FUN! No prior knowledge or experience with Scratch is required for this workshop.

Come learn how to create digital puppet videos in this FREE, 3 hour BYOI (bring your own iPad) workshop. If you haven’t seen digital puppet videos before, check out some examples on the student projects site of PlayingWithMedia.com. You’ll want to buy and install at least one of the following apps on your iPad prior to our workshop:

This is a FREE meetup/workshop led by Dr. Wesley Fryer. Homeschoolers, classroom teachers, parents, grandparents, and anyone interested in creating digital puppet videos as well as helping kids create them are welcome to attend. Students 10 years old and older are also welcome to attend WITH a parent.

Wes, just read through the dates/times of the workshops. I see that they are on Fridays, so I probably will not be able to attend, but I look forward to reading more of your posts. You are truly an inspiration to me! Vickie Hull